Reason and less

Reason and less

We consider ourselves to be rational beings. We feel that our choices, decisions, and actions are selected from a flexible array of possibilities, based upon reasons. When we vote for a political candidate, it is because they share our views on certain critical issues. When we hire an individual for a job, it is because they are the best qualified. However, if this is true, why does an analysis...

Less Rhyme, More Reason: Knowledge-based Poetry Generation with Feeling, Insight and Wit

Linguistic creativity is a marriage of form and content in which each works together to convey our meanings with concision, resonance and wit. Though form clearly influences and shapes our content, the most deft formal trickery cannot compensate for a lack of real insight. Before computers can be truly creative with language, we must first imbue them with the ability to formulate meanings that ...

Less guilty by reason of adolescence: developmental immaturity, diminished responsibility, and the juvenile death penalty.

The authors use a developmental perspective to examine questions about the criminal culpability of juveniles and the juvenile death penalty. Under principles of criminal law, culpability is mitigated when the actor's decision-making capacity is diminished, when the criminal act was coerced, or when the act was out of character. The authors argue that juveniles should not be held to the same sta...

Overview: A Rare Opportunity or Just One Less Reason to Be Depressed

A year ago, in this journal, Zhang and coworkers (Zhang et al., 2005) reported that the gene encoding the enzyme responsible for the synthesis of brain sero-tonin, tryptophan hydroxylase-2 (THP2), exhibited a functional variant associated with major (or unipolar) depression. The variant in question (G1463A) altered a critical amino acid (Arg441His) in the enzyme such that, at least in a transfe...

Red Reason and Green Rights Illuminationist.Anthropology and Human Rights